Video games have become increasingly popular over time. One area of video games that is rapidly increasing in popularity is interactive on-line gaming, in which multiple game players at different locations play interactively over a network, such as the Internet. Different game players, each at their own console or station, connect through a network server to play in real time and interactively.
In video games, the players dictate the movements and actions of their virtual selves, called avatars, in a virtual environment by combinations of controls on a controller. The controls may include joysticks, buttons, and motion of the controller, itself, such as tilting, raising, twisting, and the like. The player manipulates the controls to create a controller input which is transmitted to the player's console.
In interactive on-line games, the controller inputs are transmitted over a network to a game server which receives controller inputs from a plurality of players and resolves action between players' avatars and other players' avatars, as well as features of the game such as non-character players (NCPs), forces acting on the avatars such as gravity, and objects and obstacles in the game, and the like. The resolved actions are transmitted back to the consoles, which create a video of the action from the player's avatar's perspective and present the video at a monitor connected to the console.
In many video games, including those for which interactive on-line play is available, increasing numbers of actions are available, requiring a large number of combinations of manipulations. Moreover, increasingly complex actions are available, requiring increasingly complex controller manipulations, many times requiring multiple manipulations performed either simultaneously or in a specific sequence. Also, certain game situations may require combinations of controller manipulation unique to the game situation or location. Often during interactive on-line game play a player will see a more advanced player's avatar perform an action and wonder how to accomplish the action.
Currently, a video game player who wants to know how another player has performed an action can try to ask the other player. However, the player who wants the information may not know the other player, or the other player may not be interested in making the effort to share the information. The time required to try to learn all of the complex controller manipulations for a myriad of actions may lead to frustration for inexperienced game players.
A video game player may also perform a combination of multiple controller manipulations that the player believes are unrelated to each other during video game play that yield an unexpected result, because the player has inadvertently performed a combination with a defined result of which the player was unaware. While the player may want to understand the combination of manipulations that lead to the unexpected result, the player may not be able to recall or determine the exact combination of controller manipulations required, leading to frustration.